In the past year, many very profitable tech companies — Apple, PayPal, Google, Meta to name a few — have laid off many people. They have done this to “maximize shareholder value.” I call this the Jack Welch strategy, named for the former General Electric CEO who laid off more than 100,000 employees to increase short-term stock value and created a company that long-term saw its market cap go from $450 billion to $200 billion.
One of the areas hit first and hardest by these layoffs was these companies’ DEI efforts. At the same time, marketing organizations at major corporations have become less diverse, according to the ANA’s latest report on diversity in the advertising and marketing industry.